It boils down to...Donald Trump

The scoring consensus seems to be Romney dominated, Obama showed up, and if you make your living in the artificial yellow feather business, update your resume.

But we also learned a few things.

Contrary to his pre-debate image Romney promised not to cut the overall amount of tax revenue coming into the government.

"To do that, that also means I cannot reduce the burden paid by high-income Americans," says Romney.

So absolutely no tax cuts for the rich.

"But I do want to reduce the burden being paid by middle-income Americans," he says.

In particular, he would reduce the burden on owners of small businesses. But wait, says Obama, I cut taxes on 97 percent of small business owners. Not good enough, says Romney, because you leave out the 3 percent.

"But those businesses that are in the last 3 percent of businesses happen to employ half, half of all the people who work in small business. Those are the businesses that employ one quarter of all the workers in America."

Now it's about the three percent.

To which Obama says, true, I do leave out the top 3 percent of small businesses.

"But under Governor Romney's definition, Donald Trump is a small business," says Obama.

And Romney didn't contradict him. So what this boils down to is, Donald Trump and the three percent are the key to the recovery. And Obama would raise their taxes, while Romney would not.

And by the way, the idea that Jim Leherer was part of a liberal plot to help the president? Nice try.

Dave Ross,
KIRO Radio Morning News AnchorDave Ross hosts the Morning News on KIRO Radio weekdays from 5-9 a.m. Dave has won the national Edward R. Murrow Award for writing five times since he started at KIRO Radio in 1978.